"Leaner and meaner" are two terms you may use to describe a malnourished lion suffering through a drought, but the same phrase also applies to a cornered Firefox. Google's Chrome took a bit of the luster away from Mozilla's star browser. Rather than simply shrug their shoulders, Firefox's developers rolled up their sleeves and got hard at work on the MemShrink program, an initiative to reduce the browser's horrible memory leaks. Members of the team have reported great successes; now, with the release of Firefox 7 Beta, you can check out the memory improvements for yourself.

Itching to get your hands on a copy of Windows 8? You won't have to wait much longer, or at least that's the case if you're willing to roll the dice on beta software being stable. Microsoft announced in a blog post yesterday that a pre-release version of Windows 8 is slated to ship real soon, which likely means a beta build is just around the corner.

Longtime Maximum PC readers might remember former Associate Editor David Murphy stuffing a shopping cart full of PC parts into a cardboard enclosure in order to save some nickels in our $500 PC Build Off challenge. Obvious safety hazards notwithstanding, Murphy's pauper path to PCtopia is still an option, or you could forgo a night at the movies and apply that money you would have spent on an ultra cheap chassis like BitFenix's new Merc series.

Mozilla over the weekend gave its Firefox 6 browser a groom and haircut so that it can pass for a beta release. The next step is to give the 6.0 release a suit, tie, and spiffy pair of shoes so that it's ready to mingle with the public at large. Until then, you can download the beta build and get acquainted with Firefox 6, which offers a handful of changes and improvements over previous builds.

Steven Sinofsky and his team are guarding the release date of Redmond’s next OS pretty carefully these days, but despite the all the clues that point to a 2012 launch we haven’t had much to go on until now. According to ZDnet’s Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft should be ready to launch Windows 8 by no later than summer 2012, with an official beta being seeded to developers at the September build conference.

If there's a Rodney Dangerfield of browser makers, it has to be Opera Software, the Norwegian browser maker responsible for Opera, the oft overlooked alternative to Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. Opera might not get the same market share respect that the big three receive, but even if the useage numbers don't bear it out, it's a decent overall browser worth checking out. For those who like to live on the bleeding edge, Opera Software just made available Opera 11.50 beta codenamed "Swordfish."

After five weeks of testing on the Firefox Aurora channel, Firefox 5 has graduated to the beta channel. Maybe more important is the fact that this release shipped on time, which bodes well for Mozilla's planned June 21 launch date for the final version. And while there aren't a ton of changes in Firefox 5, Mozilla's mechanics rooted out 1,053 bugs under the hood for what's hopefully a smoother ride.

Have you gotten your invite yet? No, not the one to the party, but to Google's Music Beta service. Don't hang your head and pout if you haven't received yours yet, it will probably arrive soon, assuming you requested one in the first place. Word on the web is that Google has begun sending out invites to us regular folk, opening up the beta service to non-Xoom owners.

There's a new version of Google's Chrome browser available in the beta channel. Chrome 12 beta includes a handful of upgrades and enhancements, such as "snazzier" graphics, hardware accelerated 3D CSS, security and privacy upgrades, improved screen reader support, and better Flash integration. Also new to Chrome 12, Google stripped the browser of its Gears plug-in as it shifts focus to HTML5.

Our desire for Diablo III has been well-documented, but – for the uninitiated – we would do terrible, terrible things to obtain it. Talking during a movie? In a heartbeat. Eating food that someone's clearly claimed with a Sharpie scrawling of their name? Without a second thought. We might even change lanes without signaling, but frankly, we're not breaking that glass unless an unlikely Skyrim delay emergency pops up. At any rate, the Diablo III beta's now just around the corner. Join us in rejoicing.